Saturday 5 October 2013

Day 4: Eurostar

Central Park Hotel concierge called this private cab for me.

I was surprised to see such a huge cab, so I checked with the driver how much it cost before I boarded it. I didn't want to get a nasty shock or get on a pirate ship.
It was 20 pounds. It was reasonable to me.
We reached St Pancras Station in about 10 minutes.

It was still early, so we decided to get our breakfast at the station.
A free-standing piano at the station for anyone to play
Our hot chocolate for the 4th day
Where we had our breakfast
I scanned my e-tickets to get the actual tickets at a machine here
And we went through the customs at the opposite side
Lots of travellers waiting to board Eurostar
Waiting
Platform of Eurostar
 The carriage number was indicated on the exterior of the carriage
We were disappointed that of so many large and long window panels, we had to be seated at the window divider where it was not possible to view any scenery, but we tried to keep our spirit up as we were on our way to Disneyland!

However, as fate would have it, something unpleasant happened again. 

There was a large British family seated right in front of us and behind us. Besides the fact that these Brits could get the nice window views, it was beyond me why there was such an illogical way of seat arrangement. 

The kids and adults from this big family walked up and down the aisle in order to talk to one another and made a lot of noise. I am not particularly racist, but I could not help comparing them with the Chinese Mainlanders who are notorious for being loud, boorish and inconsiderate.

The boring journey made me nod off after a while. When I woke up, I felt something damp on me. It was a used wet tissue. Well, it was difficult not to deduce that it was from you-know-who.

At the end of this unpleasant London trip, even the docile and accommodating Coco felt that we were victims of racial discrimination. For the first time in our life, we experienced racial discrimination, ever so strongly, in a supposedly first-world country. 

First-world country, third-world thinking - my London takeaway.

We were just so glad we were out of that place.

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